Six-year-old Coy Mathis, center, nuzzles close to her mother, Kathryn, during a news conference on the steps of the state Capitol on Wednesday. Coy’s brother Max, also 6, joined them. Kathryn says Coy, who was born male, identifies as female.

The complaint filed by the family of a transgender Fountain first-grader banned from using the girls’ restroom at her school is the first of its kind to be considered by the Colorado Civil Rights Division — and it may require court action to resolve.

“We’ve had a handful of transgender cases in the past five years,” although none dealt with the use of bathrooms by elementary schoolchildren, division director Steven Chavez said. “Usually, they’ve been resolved.”

Kathryn and Jeremy Mathis, parents of 6-year-old Coy, filed a complaint with the civil rights agency after she was banned from using the girls’ restroom at Eagleside Elementary because she was born male.

On Feb. 15, the Civil Rights Division sent a formal charge to Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8, which must respond within 30 days.

“It’s not too late for the school to do the right thing,” said Michael Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, who officially announced the complaint on the steps of the state Capitol at a news conference Wednesday morning.

Transgender rights, he said, “will be America’s next great civil rights struggle.”

The family appeared Tuesday on Katie Couric’s daytime television show and Wednesday on CNN.

Wm. Kelly Dude, a lawyer for the district, said in a news release that Coy’s parents “have chosen to publicize this matter by appearing on a nationally televised show with their child, sharing their point of view with national and local media, and holding a public press conference to announce the filing of the charge.”

The appropriate forum for discussing the issue is through the Civil Rights Division process, he said, and the district “has acted reasonably and fairly with respect to this issue.”

Coy is being home-schooled until a decision is made.

The Mathises want Coy to be able to return to the school she had attended since 2011 and to be allowed to use the girls’ restroom. In December, district officials ruled the child would have to begin using the boys’ restroom, a staff restroom or a restroom in the school nurse’s office.

At the news conference, Coy — who was born a boy but identified as a girl as soon as she was able to talk — ran circles around her four siblings, smiling and laughing, wearing hot-pink pants and shoes, a taupe jumper and pink barrette in her hair.

“Every father has a vision of what he wants his son to be like,” Jeremy Mathis said. “But I don’t want her to grow up and regret her childhood. I love her so much.”

Kathryn Mathis said: “We just want her to have the same opportunities all our other children have, to be treated equally and without discrimination.”

After the school district responds to the charge, the case will be assigned to a Civil Rights Division investigator, who may request additional information, Chavez said.

Both sides will be offered the opportunity to engage in voluntary mediation. If that offer is declined, a formal investigation will begin and a letter of determination will be issued by the Civil Rights Division on whether discrimination has occurred.

After that, there is a compulsory conciliation, where both sides “have to come to the table and try to work it out,” Chavez said.

If that fails, the case goes to the Civil Rights Commission, which could order the case to go before an administrative law judge.

“I don’t want my 7-year-old girl going into a restroom with a boy,” said Aurora resident Karen Carter, who has three children in public schools. “If this person has boy genitals, I don’t think she needs to be in there with him.”

If her daughter’s school allowed a child born as a boy to use the girls’ restroom, she would withdraw her child for home-schooling.

Leaders of the local gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community hope this case sparks dialogue.

“We hope that schools across Colorado will take this opportunity to review their policies and procedures,” said Mindy Barton, legal director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Colorado, at the news conference.

Denver Public Schools’ discrimination policies do not address this specific issue, “but it does state that the Denver schools do not discriminate based on gender identity,” spokeswoman Kristy Armstrong said in an e-mail interview.

Although DPS would not require a transgender child to use the restroom of the gender with which they did not identify, Armstrong said “schools would need to provide single-use and/or gender neutral restroom accessibility in order to ensure safety and privacy of all students.”